how to take content photos

One of the biggest parts of writing a blog or running an Instagram for your business that most people tend to struggle with or forget about until the last minute (including me haha) is CONTENT PHOTOS! Now I know what you're thinking, because I thought it too, "But Emma, I'm not an Instagram influencer. I don't need full on photoshoots for myself" or "I don't have anyone to take pictures of me so how is that supposed to work?". First off, if you are running any sort of business, YOU NEED TO SHOW UP!!! That means you need to not just showcase you or your product, but there needs to be pictures of YOU on there too! People are wayyyyy more likely to click right off of your page if there isn't a picture of you in the first 9 images on your instagram or on your main page of your website.

So how do we fix this? Well if you have a friend, photographer or not, ask them to take pictures of you! If you don't have anyone, set up a tripod and a self-timer and take your own pics!

But content photos don't end here. You need photos of what you're selling.

Option 1

One option to get photos of your product is to hire a photographer. This may seem a bit extra, but if you really want your business to look professional, you're gonna need something a bit more professional than iPhone photos. And the perks of hiring a photographer is that they will send you a completely edited gallery of images so you don't need to worry about editing AND your feed will get a consistent look to it because every image will be edited in the same style.

Option 2

Another option is to take your own photos. If you choose to go this route, it may be worth it for you to purchase a DLSR camera, but you don't need a super fancy and expensive one. A good camera for beginners or anyone wanting to purchase a nicer camera but not go fully professional is the Canon Rebel T7. It takes beautiful, professional-looking photos and is very user-friendly!

When taking your own content photos you need to keep a few things in mind:

1. Keep it simple

Having a white backdrop can help make your product stand out and catch the viewers eye. You can easily create a mini-studio by placing a white poster board or curtain behind what you're photographing.

2. Make sure there is nothing distracting in the background

You want your customers to stay focused on your product, not the phone charger in the background. Clean up the background!

3. Have good lighting

The best way to get good lighting is by setting up your photoshoot location right by a window. Be careful about placing your product directly in front of a window though because it could easily get very backlit and darken the subject of your photo which is a no-no. Instead, set up your mini-studio adjacent to a window to get the best light.

4. Don't go overboard on the editing

A good rule of thumb: Keep it natural.

This is where things can go REAL BAD. We have all seen the overly edited Instagram pictures where people look straight ORANGE and the grass looks dead lololol. So let's avoid that. You don't want your product to look that drastically different than the color of it in real life because then your customers won't truly know what they are buying. A good way to tell if your photo is over-edited is after you first edit it, step away for a while and then come back to it a few hours later and if on first opening it, it looks good then you're set. If it looks weird or unnatural then you know that that edit is not it haha.

Now you know your options for content photos and the basics of taking your own so there is no excuse for you not to be showing up on your business's instagram or website! Comment down below if this helped you!